


lay me down to sleep

by rikacain



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, M/M, Not Chronologically Ordered
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-01
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-07 01:11:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1879383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rikacain/pseuds/rikacain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the 00Q Summer Exchange.</p>
<p><i>It’s a symbiotic relationship</i>, Q insists whenever he wants to be a smarmy little arse and a poetic one to boot, <i>we both benefit from it. You get a good night’s sleep and I get some company and a roof over my head.</i></p>
<p>James has nightmares and Q is the solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	lay me down to sleep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rerumfragmenta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rerumfragmenta/gifts).



> This fic is requested by rerumfragmenta for the 00Q Summer Exchange by 00qnewyearparty, who asked for:
> 
> _The day after M dies, Bond has a very vivid and bloody nightmare. When he wakes up he finds Q sitting on his bed, claiming to be a dream-eating demon. He offers Bond his services in exchange for a place to live and some company. He eats Bond's nightmares every night and crafts calm, peaceful dreams for him instead. Their relationships shifts as time passes - from simple roommate-like strangers to close friends to lovers. ___
> 
> __I hope I have done the prompt justice._ _

_Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep._

* * *

Sometimes when they’re feeling rather melancholic, when Q looks more the part of the too-young-quartermaster and James a veteran back from war, Q will ask, “do you want to know about your nightmares?”

James (almost) always says no.

* * *

They’re flatmates. _It’s a symbiotic relationship_ , Q insists whenever he wants to be a smarmy little arse and a poetic one to boot, _we both benefit from it. You get a good night’s sleep and I get some company and a roof over my head_.

On certain days, James snorts. On other days, he says, “there’s no need to make it sound pretty - I’m your favourite restaurant.”

“True,” Q answers, shrugging carelessly. “But at least you’re five stars.”

On hindsight, James never knows whether to accept that as a compliment.

* * *

At work, James is 007 and Q is Q.

In the apartment, James is James, Bond, you wanker, tosser, and a creative and variable range of cusswords that dates back to Queen Victoria.

Q is still Q, and after some time James learns that there is no such thing as a real name, or more accurately that there doesn't need to be one.

* * *

One day, he doesn’t dream of anything.

Usually when Q consumes his nightmares, he would craft an alternate dream of sorts ( _not a real dream, more of an illusion, useful little ability we evolved to keep you lot unaware_ ), something involving butterflies or rainbows or something that vaguely associates with ‘happy’. James would then wake up feeling as if he had petted the equivalent of five hundred puppies - which is to say, very content.

(If faced with five hundred puppies in real life, suffice it to say that puppy petting would not have occurred.)

On that day he just snaps awake, blank darkness one moment and sharp awareness the next. Q is puttering about in the kitchen for his morning tea.

“I didn’t dream of anything,” he says.

“Good morning,” Q says.

“Q.”

“You didn’t have a nightmare,” he answers. The kettle whistles and he takes it off. “I didn’t need to do anything.” James accepts the cup of tea Q pours out for him, and they don’t say anything else.

The following day, he wakes up feeling like he petted puppies again, the dream dissolving into wisps of warmth.

* * *

“Is this what you really look like?” James asks.

“If you’re asking if I look like a gargoyle with curly horns, then no,” Q answers flatly.

“I’m asking you what you look like,” James reiterates. They have their conversational part of the deal in the morning, before Q has to return to the headquarters. He doesn’t understand why Q is part of MI6, or why he is even working in the first place; he doesn’t understand many things about Q, to be honest. It’s already a risk he’s letting him mess around with his head while he’s sleeping.

If anyone had told him a week ago there were such things as demons, he would have dismissed them as a religious fool. He would have also put them onto MI6’s watchlist, just in case they tried to burn down the world along with themselves.

But that is a week ago, and this is today: he’s having morning tea with someone who claims to be a demon, and if not a demon then at least someone who can get rid of his nightmares without the need to go into psych evaluations. Said demon puts down his tea cup, the china hitting the plate with a soft _clink_.

“To be honest,” Q says, looking thoughtful, “I’m not actually sure. I suppose I could be anything, really - I’ve took this form because it’s awfully convenient to have a corporeal body - but that could be my illusions at work. If I drop the illusions, I’ll just be invisible, so I can’t say I know what I look like.”

“Then how do you find your kind then?” James asks, skeptical. To his surprise, Q’s countenance turns rueful.

“I guess I don’t,” he says casually. “There must be more of me, more of us out there, but I guess we’ll never find each other.”

* * *

People suspect, from the easy-going banter they fall into during missions, but no one asks.

No one, save for Moneypenny.

Today (everyday) she’s dressed sharp and smart, a sky blue blazer on a dark navy dress. She smiles at James from her desk as he waits for Mallory to finish briefing 008, having signed a report on her desk with a calculated flourish.

“Are you shagging our quartermaster,” she says with no preamble. To her credit, James reacts. “He certainly doesn’t seem like your type.”

“What’s my type?”

“Married,” Moneypenny tilts her head, her slip of a grin growing ever wider. James remembers dark hair and wide eyes; forces that memory down and away in the recesses of his mind.

“So are you?” She presses. “I must say he looks a tad too young for you. He’s almost thirty, but don’t let that dissuade you.”

“Is that what his file says,” James replies, bemused. Before Moneypenny could continue interrogating him, a harried-looking 004 sweeps past him, and Mallory’s voice calls out, “come in, 007.”

“Later,” he saunters into the room and doesn’t look back.

* * *

He’s in Bangkok to intercept a trade, but the trade isn't until tomorrow and he has time to kill. James loiters around in Patpong, where men and women and alcohol gather in abundance, changing bars whenever he feels like it. It's mostly the same, anyway - glamorous bars with high prices,  seedy looking bars with equally high prices if you so much as look at the girls.

He doesn't look at the girls. James likes his partners willing and free of charge, and the prices for these girls are too high.

People do approach him at the bar, and he entertains thoughts of flirting back, taking them back to his hotel and taking them apart, he still has his touch -

But he then wonders if Q could transport overseas and an extra presence in bed might complicate things.

He returns to his hotel room alone, barely sloshed, and he thinks he sees Q before his eyes close themselves.

* * *

“Do you want to know about your nightmares?” Almost flippant, but not quite. 004 is recuperating in the infirmary, and James knows that they’ll send the next agent available for what he lost.

He could die in the next mission, he muses. That was their jobs. They could die at any moment.

Next to him on the side of the bed, Q waits.

James decides, “no.”

* * *

Mallory doesn’t suspect Q is more than human.

James wonders if M - his M knew what Q was, and decided to keep him on anyway. But if she had known, Q wouldn’t be the quartermaster - he’d be out in the field, spinning pretty dreams to distract their marks while he infiltrated every other organisation in the name of queen and country. He’s too useful to be kept for anything else.

Then again, M didn’t put Moneypenny out of the field before she shot James in his shoulder. M didn’t expect Raoul Silva to return from the grave with a vengeance. M didn’t do a lot of things she should have done.

He could ask Q. He could also stay silent and let their little arrangement go on.

He could.

* * *

“What do dreams taste like?”

“Not everything edible has a taste,” Q points out, just to be contrary.

“We call that ‘bland’. And everything has a taste, edible or otherwise.”

“I guess you would know,” Q says lazily, no actual heat in his words. James waits for an answer expectantly, and Q caves.

“Dreams,” he says thoughtfully, staring into space. “They don’t really taste of anything - but good dreams, the one that has dreams come true and the like, those feel… like liquid clouds.”

“Liquid clouds.” James repeats flatly.

“Bugger off, I can’t describe it. I’d like you to describe ‘salty’ without using the word ‘salt’ to me,” Q sniffs. “Anyway. Liquid clouds. It’s like this stream of lightness, something that just lifts you up as it pours into you. And abstract dreams, those that make absolutely no sense as you go along; they feel like you just swallowed a ball of fireworks, and you get all sorts of weird ideas and feelings. I have some when I want to be inspired on weapons.”

James didn’t know what he was expecting from Q when he asked him that question, but it looks like he was getting it anyway.

Q is still rambling on. "And those, they taste like an adrenaline shot would, I suppose, making you raring to go off and well, hit something immediately. Like feeling too big for your skin and you want to just, shoot off.”

“What do my dreams taste like?” James interrupts.

Q blinks at him. “Yours…” he says slowly. "Yours are heavy on the mind. They ground me and makes me feel driven to do my job, to be loyal to England." Here he smiles wryly. "I dare say I won't be betraying queen and country while our deal stands."

James takes the statement as it is. "I dare say you wouldn't dare when MI6 hunts you down, demon or not."

"Let's not ever find out then," Q murmurs. It's not an admission of loyalty, but it's good enough for now.

* * *

Q has fast reflexes, a high tolerance for pain and a sharp mind.

James has almost equally as fast reflexes, a high tolerance for pain and a sharp mind.

"If you had blown my head off that first night," Q reminisces as they savour a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon between them, "I might have actually died."

"Lucky I missed then," James grunts, but something twists inside him to think of Q lying spread-eagled on the floor, eyes wide and unseeing. Something twists harder when he thinks of himself being the one who held the gun.

The next morning, Q asks again if he wants to hear about his nightmares.

James doesn't think - he simply says no.

* * *

Somewhere along the way, the flat becomes _their_ flat.

* * *

Once -

"We know who you consort with," the woman says. The hooded people gather around them, and James is tied to a chair. His fingers are scratching carefully at the rope binding his wrists, trying to tease them into letting him go. They refuse.

"We know what it is," she continues. "Call it to you and we shall let you go."

"I'm sure you will," he says, keeping his face blank as he works at his wrists. "That is, if anyone had any idea what you are talking about."

"Don't bother lying," she continues almost kindly. "There are traces of it in your soul. Repent, lest it drags you down to Hell."

Sometimes, James thinks wistfully, the ones that look calm are usually the maddest of the lot.

"I don't actually know what you're talking about," he says slowly. At least the woman didn't seem interested in state secrets.

"Call it," she urges. "Call the demon, and set yourself free."

The demon - oh. Oh. She meant Q.

"I'll do that then," he says, slipping his hands free from the now - loose ropes and he stands up -

Just as the hall is drenched in darkness. The woman and her followers scream, the cacophony of voices rebounding against stone walls. James bolts for the nearest wall, flattening himself against it as a stampede occurs.

"It's here, it's here," the woman's voice can be heard calling hysterically. "In the name of - " and she chokes off on something, perhaps her own panic. He begins to wonder whether there was something much bigger at play, something he should not have gotten involved with -

And then just as suddenly the lights flicker back on; Q stands in the middle of a crowd which cowers away from him. The woman is in a corner of her own, her hood thrown back to reveal a straggly mane of grey hair and her dull grey eyes wide in horror, staring at some invisible entity before her. Her mouth works furiously, but all that emerges are whimpers and no words.

"007," Q says.

"What did you do to her?" James demands, striding forward. "To them?"

Q remains unflappable as ever. "I turned off the lights and then crafted them nightmares," he answers. He waves his hand at the huddled crowd. "It's all a huge illusion, but right now they're essentially hallucinating little Lucy McCartney's nightmares about the Bogeyman. It's a bit of a jump from 'demon', but it'll do in a pinch."

The crowd screams in unison and shifts to one side of the room. James watches in morbid fascination as his captors reduce themselves to gibbering wrecks. Tears and snot are mingling on the woman's face, and for one moment, he realises just how powerful Q is.

How powerful he could be.

Why tether himself to a government organisation when he could be his own agent? Why take on the position of a quartermaster when he could be an interrogator, a spy, the head of MI6 if he wishes?

"James?" Q asks quietly, his face still calm but only barely uncertain. He looks as young as James thought him to be when they first met in the National Gallery.

There must be more of us out there. I guess we'll never find each other.

( _Dark eyes and dark hair, transposed like a double image upn each other. Vesper looks at him, she waits_.)

"Let's go home," James finally says, and they leave the hall.

* * *

Somewhere later, still along the way, 'their flat' becomes simply,  _home_.

* * *

James disappears one mission, winds up in one far corner of the globe where no one knows him. He nurses his wounds and with the help of a sleeping concoction forced onto him by well-meaning elders, he doesn't dream.

But he does - he sees Q out of the corner of his eye, sees him amongst the locals and sees him before he wakes. The girls here are soft and buxom, but he doesn't want.

A small part of him is terrified of what this means. A large part of him welcomes this feeling.

He leaves when he is healed, makes his way back over land and sea to his ( _country, and this feeling is like coming_ )

home.

* * *

"Welcome back, 007," Q says crisply.

His form flickers just the once and James nods at him.

* * *

He stays up, waiting. Q pops into existence shortly after one in the morning, and they stare at each other.

He's not sure who moves first - but they're hugging, hugging tightly before drawing back.

He's not sure why he tells Q either, tells him - "Tell me about my dreams."

Q pauses, suspended for a moment.

"Alright."

* * *

This is the beginning:

M and Kincade and James in the too cold church washed in the orange glow of blazing flames. M falls and James runs to catch her, runs just in case he catches her and she'll heal, just in case just in case _just in case_.

Then water pours into the church and M - M's corpse, he knows she's gone forever now - is swept away by strong currents, away from James' reach. He's swimming now, swimming and diving down to where he'll know he'll find -

Vesper, her eyes bright and desperate as she pleads with him soundlessly behind unyielding metal bars.

Then ice cold water is rushing into his nose and mouth, and he's drowning, he's drowning and he's -

"I have a proposition for you," Q says primly, perching on the side of the bed as James wrenches himself awake with a huge gasp, and James reaches for his gun and empties his clip into Q's head.

* * *

This is the present:

"They variate," Q says, his voice low and soothing. "Sometimes, it's only M. Sometimes, it's the dark-haired lady. Sometimes it's both." He breathes out. "Sometimes, it's neither."

"What are those like?" James wants to know.

"You just drown," Q says. "You drown and you try to swim towards the surface but something is sucking you down into the seabed and you drown. The water's freezing, and you’re swimming through molasses, slow and slower - and you drown. Again and again."

James can recall drowning, when he couldn't breathe and water was rushing into his nose and he couldn't tell up from down. He could only be dragged from place to place by the currents.

"And," Q hesitates. There's more, James can tell. There's more.

"And," he prompts.

"And there's me." Q breathes out, a long sigh that isn't one. "When you're drowning, you see me. You try to swim towards me, but when you get there, I've disappeared."

_I’m gone_.

James considers what Q had just told him. "I don't have a phobia of water," he deflects.

"It's all allegorical," Q says, not unkindly. There's something in his eyes, bright and assessing. "Metaphorical. So think on that."

* * *

"Don't you ever want to find someone like you?" James asks, curious.

"How would I start?" Q says, snorting lightly. He's stretched out on the bed like a cat, and James traces the markless skin of his shoulder. He knows the skin is an illusion, for all of its warmth and firmness - there are no blemishes, no scars, nothing to say that the body the skin belonged to someone human and alive.

"Put a listing up on Craigslist," James suggests cheekily and Q whacks at his arm. It smarts, but not badly.

"I don't need to find anyone," Q says, confident. "Not anymore."

* * *

This is the future: Q will live on when James inevitably dies.

This is the future: MI6 will be MI6 even if it changes owners and eras.

This is the future: the flat will still be their flat will still be _home_.

* * *

This is the present:

James kisses Q on the roof of MI6, in plain sight of the world. For one terrifying moment he imagines Q pushing him away, saying that he's wrong, _I'm sorry James_ -

But the rain keeps on falling and Q keeps on kissing him back, gently, like how he handles his equipment (how he handles dreams).

"Tell me about _your_ dreams," James says when they draw away from each other, his words almost a joke. They're nose to nose, intimate in a professional location.

Q smiles at him, laughs.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I tried writing in a style that was not chronologically ordered, but I suspect I may have failed.
> 
> Also, this is my first time writing James' POV.
> 
> Here's to my writing hopefully getting kickstarted back into what it was before, and better.


End file.
